
Xanadu Weyr - Weyrling Barracks
A long and roughly oblong cavern. About a third of the space is open, used for classes or chores as required. The rest of the space is filled with couches of varying sizes, all with plenty of space between them. Some couches are obviously intended for the very young weyrlings while the largest ones at the back are for the older weyrlings.
There are supplies for the care of dragons tucked back against the walls. A barrel of oil sits with scrub brushes and soft clothes, and a thick hardwood table is used to prepare meat in bite-sized pieces for the young dragons. There's also a few supplies for the weyrling humans, like bedding for cots or extra pillows for those sleeping on their lifemate's couch.
It's unconscionably late. The kind of unconscionably late that finds most people (and definitely weyrlings) asleep - unless you are Risa, of course. Risali is winding her way through rows of cots on bare feet, silent on the tips of her toes, wrapped up in her own blankets and dressed in a not un-modest nightgown as she makes her way to D'lei. She makes her way to D'lei, and she climbs into his cot without so much as a hello, and the weyrling tucks herself in against his body, smelling of the night and the forest and something so very her and - yep. She's leeching his heat. There's an exhale of sound contentment as she WRAPS AN ARM AROUND HIS CHEST and THROWS A LEG OVER HIS and BURROWS HER HEAD UNDER HIS CHIN and just makes herself right at home, like this is normal. This is fine. Why would he even protest A LITTLE BIT?
D'lei is apparently one of those weyrlings, not to mention people, because he is ASLEEP. Like a sleeping person, who would not answer Risali's greeting even if she gave one on account of the NOT BEING AWAKE. Because, sure, it took some time for him to re-adjust to being in barracks and surrounded by people at night, and the fact that if he hears someone moving it's probably a human and/or dragon and not a squirrel or bird coming to steal all his shinies, but he has and now he's sleeping the sleep of the just-barely-got-here-before-curfew-last-night. Motion near him? NOPE. Maybe if he was out in the wilderness camping, but he's not. This is a nice safe barracks, everything is fine. His shinies will not be stolen! His body heat, on the other hand, is most definitely at risk, for while he has on a pair of loose cotton pants that are certainly modest enough, he is not wearing a shirt. All that expanse of chest that just radiates … thermal energy. He is not quite so oblivious that he doesn't notice Risali climbing against him, buuut… neither does he wake up. The back of his brain stirs just enough to ask a sleepy question of his danger-sense, and his danger-sense responds that THIS IS FINE. So, there's a soft "Mmhm," not really a word so much as a sound of yay, and his arm slides in over her, curling around to snuggle her closer as his head tucks in over her head, tilted just a bit so that he can breathe in some oxygen in addition to hair.
Risali, is in fact, not a stealer of shiny things - or things at all! Unless you count Leirith, of course. Or body heat. But Leirith stole her, and body heat is not shiny, and well… it's all very complicated. What is not complicated is the fact that D'lei being without a shirt is arguably the best scenerio that could have happened. Why? Because it saves Risali (or D'lei) from that potentially-embarrassing situation where the weyrling shoves her hands beneath his shirt and saps the bronzerider's heat that way. Because she would, you know, and she would do it shamelessly - to D'lei, anyway. Lucky (unfortunate) man. This is what happens when you make nice with shrews. For now, they are both spared that trauma (or indignity, whatever), as Risali tilts her head up, and presses her lips to his jaw, and cuddles in even closer than what he's already pulled her in, because WHAT ARE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS, EVEN, IF THEY ARE NOT MEANT TO BE BROKEN? And WHY SHOULD THEY EVEN BE OBEYED? Juuuust kidding. She's probably just half on him now, but D'lei probably doesn't need to breathe anyway. HE IS A MAN, RIGHT? He can take it. "I told him," Risali whispers, and through the exhaustion in her voice and the very real desire to sleep, there's something else - relief, perhaps? Joy? It's muted, whatever it is, and Risali doesn't elaborate on what she means (though it is probably obvious). She simply tucks her head back under his chin, curls herself more comfortably against him, and closes her eyes so that she can sleep. This is where she feels safe, this is another place that she feels home, and this will probably become a habit if D'lei doesn't stop her.
Besides, body heat is totally a renewable resource. D'lei will just make more, and so if Risali doesn't use this, it's going to waste. But instead, she has provided him an opportunity to be useful! To provide his heat to her. And he does, because… well, because he does. Because his one arm shifts back again as she climbs over him, and the other one curls up instead, tracing through a tumble of hair before it settles just… there. Because that's where the right place is, just like the right place for his upper leg is to slide back a bit because that's how their bodies fit to maximize the contact and warmth that radiates from him to her but also back to him, in this cycle of touch that makes him smile even if he's… still not entirely what one might call awake. Why would he be? This is comfortable and good and happy and he has no need to actually wake up to snuggle close (and sleep). Do Risali's words even register? Maybe. D'lei certainly says, "Good," but the word is sleep-blurred and soft. Is he responding to her actual statement and understanding it, or is he just responding with those word-things to the emotive content that Risali is here and has expressed an emotion in a broadly-positive space and therefore it is good… whatever it actually is? And really… does it matter? She closes her eyes to sleep. He drifts back deeper to his own slumber. In the morning, there will be wakings to be done, but for now? Sleep. As people do, at night. So really, what could be the problem?